


I See Your Siren's Song

by mytimehaspassed



Series: Made to Stray Verse [2]
Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Alternate Universe - Rock Band, F/M, M/M, Multi, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-18
Updated: 2013-05-18
Packaged: 2017-12-12 06:37:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/808439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mytimehaspassed/pseuds/mytimehaspassed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Brad meets Nate, he’s freelancing for Rolling Stone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I See Your Siren's Song

**I SEE YOUR SIREN'S SONG**  
GENERATION KILL  
Brad/Ray; Ray/Walt; Brad/Nate; Trombley/FC; Nate/Brad/Ray  
 **WARNINGS** : Band!AU; mention of drug usage

First: [Made to Stray](http://andletmestand.livejournal.com/32583.html)

  
**1.**

The first time Brad meets Nate, he’s freelancing for Rolling Stone.

Nate has modest tattoos and an acoustic guitar and he blinks twice at Brad before his face opens up in a big, bright smile, and Brad takes his hand and holds it for longer than he should. Nate speaks softly and sings like a goddamn angel and Brad takes a few shots without ever pausing, without ever taking his camera away from his face.

Nate is simple and low-key and had risen in the charts as an unexpected hit in the era of those operatic, ballsy numbers from American Idol, the single for his new album making it all the way to the trailer for a summer blockbuster. He’s quickly becoming a household name, but never shows it, smiling and laughing at Brad’s dumb jokes, answering questions about himself only when asked, strumming the strings of his guitar absentmindedly.

Nate is a solo act, has been ever since his ex-girlfriend ran away with her voice and their drummer. He’s nice about it when he tells Brad over coffee while Brad’s assistants set up the studio lighting, he shrugs and smiles self-deprecatingly and says that it just wasn’t meant to be and Brad bites back the words he usually uses to describe his own ex-girlfriend (the one that cheated on him with his best friend, the one who still looks at him with her beautiful eyes and her beautiful smile and hopes that they can all still be friends).

Brad lets Nate scroll through the digital photos on the crappy laptop that Rolling Stone had given Brad, watches him study each one critically, weighing angles and light and the way that Nate’s fingers fall on the guitar strings. Every one is beautiful, Nate’s open mouth and pale skin and short hair, the way the guitar sits on Nate’s lap, Nate’s leg hanging from his chair.

“This one,” Nate says, and points to the one where Nate has his face turned away, a halo of light surrounding the curve of his cheek.

Brad smiles. It’s his favorite, too.

***

Brad asks Nate out for a drink, and they get maybe three beers in before Brad slides a hand around the back of Nate’s chair, his fingers slowly, slowly brushing against the back of Nate’s hoodie, and Nate swallows a smile, his cheeks pink through the glass he uses to hide his face, and asks Brad if he wants to come back to his place.

Brad mumbles something stupid and then says, “Yes,” and again, “Yes.”

Nate leads him out the door with his palm warm in Brad’s.

***

They fuck for three months before Brad asks Nate if they’re dating. Nate shrugs and makes a face, his fingers paused on his guitar strings, Brad fiddling with the lens of his camera, his big hands clumsy and swollen with anxiety.

They’re in Nate’s apartment because Brad has seldom led Nate back to his, the stark space and minimalist furniture and sharp military corners of his bed. Nate hadn’t said anything about that, hadn’t said much, actually, from the time that he had pushed Brad into his bed with swift, gentle palms and his sweet, wet mouth to the time that he had just fallen into Brad’s life, like something more than a one night stand. Neither of them had said anything about why this had started, about where they were going next.

And neither of them had mentioned the fact that – between their frantic, over-crowded schedules and the way Brad still talks about his ex – a healthy relationship would be nonexistent.

“Um,” Nate says finally, plucking a sound on his guitar that seems almost, but not quite, lonely to Brad. “Do you want to be dating?”

Brad makes a noise that isn’t exactly dignified, his mouth a white, crooked line, and he thinks about his ex-girlfriend and he thinks about his best friend and he thinks about the way Nate looks when he plays, his golden voice and the sweet, eager expression he carries in his eyes. He doesn’t say anything and Nate moves closer to him, setting the guitar down on the floor and curling up on the sofa, tucking his feet underneath himself and tracing Brad’s mouth with the tips of his fingers.

His fingers feel rough on Brad’s mouth and Brad takes Nate’s hand in his and kisses him, kisses his cheek and his nose and kisses the place where his jaw meets his neck, just below his ear, kisses him until Nate kisses back, wild and scrabbling for attention, his mouth a swollen red smear across his face.

Nate doesn’t say anything, but he asks with his hands and his lips and he asks with his tongue and his muscular, trim thighs, and he asks when Brad takes him back to Nate’s bed, pushing the sheets down so he can back Nate up against the headboard, Nate’s fingers gripping the wood hard. He asks when Brad kisses him and keeps kissing him, until Nate looks mauled, his skin pink and puckering with attention.

He asks when Brad looks at him for a moment, sitting back on his legs, naked, watching Nate watch him. Nate looks exposed, open where the black of his tattoos meet his pale, unmarred skin, and Brad had traced his tongue over the letters and symbols so many times that he knows them all by heart, and Nate asks him again and again and again and Brad pushes against him, swallows him whole, just to shut him up.

Nate asks.

But Brad doesn’t answer.

***

Or, Brad doesn’t answer until the next morning when he leaves with a shallow, “Sorry,” mumbled against Nate’s shoulder, his clothes smelling sharp with Nate’s expensive cologne.

***

Brad doesn’t see him for another year after that.

 

 

**2.**

Walt came up with the idea first. They had been teenagers and Ray’s mother had been on a week-long bender with her current boyfriend and Walt’s dad had just left (stuffing his clothes into an over-sized bag and cracking open one last can of beer before he had told Walt to tell his mother that he was leaving for good this time, his hand on the doorknob like a one-way ticket) and Walt had turned to Ray and said, “Let’s start a band,” waiting for Ray to pull the joint out of his mouth and blow out a low, smoke-tinged, “Fuck yeah,” before crushing his mouth to Ray’s.

They had fucked for the first time in Walt’s bedroom, frantic and unapologetic and short-lived, Ray’s panting mouth against the side of Walt’s cheek and Walt’s hand slipping between Ray’s jeans and his hot, flushed skin.

Afterwards, Ray had lit the pinched end of his joint and passed it to Walt, who took a hit and coughed and then passed it back to Ray. Ray had smiled at Walt and kissed him on the lips and Walt had said, “I was serious,” tucking his fingers in Ray’s clothes, his body buzzing. “About the band, I mean. If you want to do this with me.”

And Ray had laughed, slow and deliberate, and blew out smoke from the joint in a perfect circle, watching it curl up and up and up. “Walt,” he had said, kissing Walt one more time. “I will follow you fucking anywhere.”

***

They had saved up enough money to buy one guitar, Walt teaching himself how to pluck the strings by turning the pages of overdue library books twenty, maybe thirty times every day. He practiced in the basement, with Ray smoking and telling jokes and singing loud, obnoxious country songs while he wrote little half-lines of something that could be worthwhile.

(Ray had chosen singing because he did it everywhere, did it every day, and because he had taken one look at Walt furrowing his eyebrows over the bulky Yamaha and threw up his hands and said, “Fuck it, I’ll sing. It can’t be that hard, right?”)

They had put out an ad in the local newspaper for a drummer – “Skilled,” they wrote, “With the patience of a saint.” – and got Trombley.

Ray had looked at him with a suspicious, frozen gaze and had said, “Next.”

Trombley had looked confused, glancing around Walt’s basement as if there were other people waiting to audition. Walt had elbowed Ray in the ribs and smiled angelically, asking Trombley to sit down at the rented drum kit and play something for them, handing Trombley the drumsticks Ray had picked up at a Metallica concert during his metal phase.

Trombley had started off slow, with something unrecognizable, before diving into “Paint it Black” and then back out to “Lust for Life” and then ending with some sort of amalgamation of hip-hop and rock and pop, crashing the cymbals with an explosive thrust.

“Jesus,” Ray had said, a cigarette hanging forgotten from his lip.

And Trombley had grinned from behind the drums.

***

Walt and Ray quit school on the same day, walking out after Ray’s math teacher had asked him to finish a problem on the board and Ray, writing words in his notebook that were not quite, but almost, an entire song, had lifted his middle finger and told him to fuck off, the class falling silent in that hushed way they do before a fight. Ray’s teacher had stood for a moment, balancing chalk in his hands, before asking him to leave the class, his voice low and dangerous.

Ray had rolled his dark, sleep-tinged eyes (this was before he was addicted to Ripped Fuel, but after he had gained an appreciation for meth – and, later, heroin – spending his nights either at Walt’s, kissing and licking and sucking his way down Walt’s body, or at his house where his mother’s boyfriend liked to yell and scream and throw a couple punches when he was drunk) and gathered his backpack and raised his eyebrows at Walt, mouthing, “Fuck this.”

Walt had watched him walk through the front doors from the windows of the classroom, watched him turn back to face the school and raise both of his middle fingers. Walt had laughed then, but later, after Ray had snuck through Walt’s bedroom window in the middle of the night, after Ray had kissed him and begged Walt to quit school, too, and run away with him (they could both hear Walt’s mom in the living room, chain smoking and watching TV louder than she should, her desperate, shallow weeping underscored by the sitcom’s laugh track), Walt had thought quietly for a moment before nodding once, his mouth pinned to Ray’s as he says, “Okay.”

***

They didn’t last.

The band does, though, and their friendship, which Ray had always said would last until the day that Walt died and Ray found someone else to call in the middle of the night and rant about music to – “Preferably somebody with a big cock,” he says, and wiggles his eyebrows up and down – and Trombley, too, even though Ray had had his doubts at first, Trombley’s psychotic ramblings and slack, robotic gaze.

Ray writes a song about their mutual break-up and Walt stands over him reading the words scratched furiously on the crumpled up piece of notebook paper and makes a face. “You spelled douchebag wrong,” he says, and looks at Ray, his face solemn and empathetic. “And I didn’t think you were this angry.”

Trombley looks up from where he sits at the drums and looks first at Ray’s tweaked face and then at Walt’s furrowed brows and then back again.

“I’m not,” Ray says, and stretches out his arms, his shirt riding up to expose one of his new tattoos. “It’s art, holmes. You’re allowed a little creative license.”

Walt looks at him for another minute, his mouth a worried line, before nodding. “Okay,” he says. “But you’ll tell me if things get bad?”

Ray drops his shoulders, tilting his head, saying, “Walt,” drawing out the name.

“Okay,” Walt says again, holding his pink palms up, open. “Okay,” and then he drops the lyrics and sits beside Ray, his hands finding Ray’s hands.

There’s a long moment of silence before Trombley breaks it. “What’s a douchebag?” he asks, and Ray throws a plastic cup at him.

 

 

**3.**

Trombley finds the pregnancy test hidden in his duffle during the first tour.

He grins for an entire week, overly animated, touching Ray and Walt during inappropriate times, playing the drums with a fervor he’s never experienced. He calls his wife every few hours to ask how it feels, how the baby feels, and he clutches the phone to his cheek and only stops smiling when his mouth begins to hurt.

Ray introduces him to Everclear and Trombley gets spectacularly drunk, slurring I love yous through shots. Ray ruffles his hair and takes his face between his hands and says, “Just don’t name him after me, you fucking psycho,” kissing Trombley full on the mouth.

And Trombley gives him a thumbs up right before he passes out.

***

When he gets home, his wife is only slightly swollen, her feet a little bigger, her skin a little warmer, and Trombley brings her breakfast in bed for the first few days, pushing her back down on the mountain of pillows when she tries to get up, before she finally levels him with her harshest look and tells him, in Spanish, to quit acting like she’s some kind of fragile fucking flower.

Trombley quickly agrees, but places a soothing hand on her tummy, anyway.

***

He quits the band on a Tuesday.

Ray is standing at the mic where they practice in their rented studio and he screams, “WHAT,” louder than anything Trombley has ever heard, and Walt makes a mumbled cry like, “Jesus,” before placing his hands over his ears. Ray looks livid, looks violent, and Trombley feels nothing beneath his skin, feels liquid cool.

“I’m quitting,” he says again, shrugging. “With the baby coming, I need some more money. I was thinking about joining the Marines, actually.”

Walt looks up at him and says, “Trombley,” his voice soft. “We’ll never find another drummer as talented as you. And we’re getting there; we’re going to be really huge one day.”

“I know,” Trombley says, and he smiles sadly, repeating the words his father had said to him over the phone the night before, “I just need to think about my future now.”

“Oh, that’s a good plan, Trombley,” Ray says, and it’s vicious between them. “Go join the Marines and get your head blown off so that your wife can receive some combat pay. Why would they even let you in when you’re so retarded?”

Trombley frowns and Walt hisses Ray’s name and makes a move like he wants to slap his arm but doesn’t, turning back to Trombley. “It’s your life, Trombley,” Walt says, and he stands up, placing one hand on Trombley’s shoulder. “You have to do what you think is best.”

Ray rolls his eyes dramatically and says, “Fuck it, we’ll just put out another ad and find a similar psycho who knows all of our songs. You can leave now, Trombley. We no longer need you.” He pushes the mic off its stand and it falls, making a sharp, metallic sound that echoes around the room. He walks past Trombley and out the door, obscuring the bright splash of sunlight for a moment.

Walt winces and makes a gesture with his hands, like he’s trying to explain something that is utterly unexplainable. “He’s just sensitive,” he says finally, and Trombley frowns again in confusion.

“Are you talking about Ray?” Trombley asks, and Walt sighs.

***

Because Ray wouldn’t even think about coming to Trombley, Trombley goes to Ray. He finds him in one of the little dive bars that they frequent, they they’ve played in a couple of times on amateur karaoke nights, and he slides in Ray’s booth and orders a beer.

Ray smashes a half-smoked cigarette into the ashtray in front of him and doesn’t look up. “I’m not going to take you back,” he says, his voice hoarse. “Matter of fact, we’ve just hired a replacement. He’s really hot and not averse to backstage orgies, so that’s a step up.”

“Ray,” Trombley begins, but Ray holds up one hand as if to say he isn’t finished.

“I figured Walt and I could share him, but considering that Walt is a bigger fag than I am, he’ll probably get all weepy and shit and quit the band, too.”

Trombley takes a sip of his beer, looking down. Ray clenches a fist and when he speaks again, his words are biting.

“I just thought you wanted this to work as much as Walt and I do,” he says, looking at Trombley with tired eyes. He looks like he’s been up all night, like he’s had one too many pills or rails or whatever he’s been doing these days. “I just thought,” and here he unclenches his fist and trails off, lighting another cigarette.

“Ray,” Trombley says again. “I’ve always wanted to be a drummer. Ever since I could pick up drumsticks. And this has been the best fucking summer I have ever had. This is my dream.”

“Then why are you leaving?” Ray asks, and it’s a whisper. He places a hand on table between them, palm down.

“Well, about that,” Trombley says, and smiles sheepishly.

“You’re not getting a fucking raise,” Ray says. “Walt and I started this, we get most of the fucking money. End of.” He blows smoke out of the side of his mouth angrily.

“It probably doesn’t matter now,” and Trombley takes a cigarette out of Ray’s pack and lights the tip, even though he promised himself that he would quit last week. “Walt just got a phone call from Sub Pop. They want to sign us.”

Ray blinks once and then again and says, “You better not be fucking kidding me, Trombley, or I will gut you like a fish.”

Trombley laughs and shakes his head and Ray cheers so loudly that the manager comes out from behind the bar to kick them out, unrelenting to Ray’s pleads and cries. They stumble into the streets and Ray presses tight against Trombley and screams something about finally making it and Trombley smokes another cigarette and lets Ray kiss him even when it feels more than just friendly, Ray gripping Trombley’s shirt in his fingers like a lifeline.

***

Trombley names the baby Joshua James.

 

 

**4.**

Nate meets Ray through Brad.

Actually, Nate meets Ray and Walt through Brad and assumes that they are together with the way that Ray crowds around Walt, his fingers barely touching anything – or anyone – else besides Walt’s golden skin, his fingers at the nape of Walt’s neck, his fingers wrapped around Walt’s forearm, his fingers touching Walt’s fingers when Ray hands him a drink. They’re at some label party, and Brad has just handed Nate a red plastic cup and smiled at him, seemingly trying to work up the nerve to say something apologetic or maybe just earnest, when Ray comes over and says, “So this is the infamous Nate,” wiggling his eyebrows at Brad.

Brad shakes his head and says, “Shut the fuck up, Ray,” in this exhausted, endearing tone and that’s when Nate suddenly gets that Ray is actually here with Brad, is Brad’s date to this fucking label party like they’re in a relationship, like they’re together.

“Oh,” he says, and knows that Brad realizes what Nate just has, and Nate downs the awful smelling beer from the cup in his hands and says something about seeing his manager over by the bar, excusing himself politely.

He hears Ray behind him say, loudly, “Something I said?” but never hears Brad’s reply.

***

Brad texts him later to ask if he’s alright and Nate lies and says yes, even though he doesn’t know why he’s lying and he doesn’t know why he’s not alright.

***

Brad is doing a cover for some British mag that gathers up a number of rising American stars who have also had a hit in the UK. Nate is one of them, but so is Generation Kill, so when Nate arrives for the photoshoot on a bleary day in New York, Ray is the first person he sees.

“Hi,” Ray says through a mouthful of cream cheese, a bagel in one hand and a coffee in the other, and Nate can’t help but smile, even though he really, really doesn’t want to. He’s carrying his guitar case like a backpack and he shifts, the weight of the instrument shifting with him.

“You have a little something,” Nate says, and points to his own mouth, the corner there, and Ray wipes at his lips with the hand holding the bagel, smearing his mouth white, and says, “Did I get it?”

And Nate can see Brad grinning when he laughs.

***

Brad pairs them up for some group shots, holding the camera between them like a shield, and only lets them take a break when Ray threatens to withhold sex for the next week, his hands shaking with exhaustion and maybe something else. Brad raises an eyebrow and gives him a pointed look, gesturing to the craft service table and Ray goes reluctantly, stamping his feet like a child.

Nate watches Brad talk to him quietly, sternly, and Ray shakes something off and pretends to laugh, but Brad’s face is stuck on this worried, firm expression, unfazed by Ray’s fast mouth. He places a hand on Ray’s shoulder and Ray says something that Nate can actually read – “I’m fine” – but leans up to give him a reassuring kiss, anyway.

Something in Nate’s belly curls in on itself, and he turns away before he’s caught watching them, lets Felicia, one of Brad’s assistants, apply more bronzer to his face.

“It’s kind of weird, isn’t?” she says, tilting her head to Brad and Ray. Nate had talked to her before they started shooting, had remembered her from the first time Brad had taken his picture, from all the times after that, and she had told him that she was a huge fan, her face lit up like it was Christmas, and he had smiled sheepishly like he always does because he’s never gotten used to the gushing adoration that he can see in his fans. “They’re complete opposites. I would have thought that he would have ended up with someone sweet like you.”

“Ray’s not that bad,” Nate says, more for himself than for Ray. He looks over at them out of the corner of his eye, Brad’s big hands encircling Ray’s face before they kiss again.

“No, you’re right,” she agrees, running the makeup brush across his nose. “He takes some getting used to, though.”

Nate makes a sound that is almost, but not quite, a laugh. “That’s the understatement of the year.”

***

Ray gives Nate his number – something Nate promises himself that he will delete from his phone as soon as he’s safely away from Brad and Ray and Ray’s exhausting diatribes – and asks Nate to call him sometime to hang out or maybe join in a jam session or something, and Nate tells him that he will, smiling politely.

Ray pauses, his hand on Nate’s, warm and pulsing. “I’m serious, holmes,” he says. “I know about you and Brad, and I’m totally cool with it, and it really doesn’t mean that we can’t be friends.”

Nate wants to say something mean, just to be an asshole, but he bites his lip instead.

“Plus,” Ray says, “Walt’s always looking to add people to our orgies.” He grins and Nate shakes his head, smiling.

“Okay,” Nate says, and Ray’s face lights up.

***

It takes a month, but Ray finally manages to convince Nate to come down one sunny afternoon in July to attend Walt’s mom’s annual barbeque. Brad is tall and tan and wearing a tank top with some stupid hipster logo on it and he smiles when he sees Nate, gives him a fleeting hug and forces an overflowing cup of thinly cut liquor on him.

Ray grins when he sees him, too, pulling Nate to him tightly, squeezing the breath of out Nate’s lungs. “Whoa,” Nate says, and Ray pulls him closer, tighter, until Brad pushes him back.

“Ray’s gotten into the uppers already,” Walt explains, pushing his sunglasses up his nose. He’s sitting at one of the tables in a brightly colored lawn chair, squinting at Nate.

“Walt, baby,” Ray says, and sits down on his lap. “You know I’m just a cuddly person.” Ray picks up Walt’s glass of beer and gulps it like water.

“Okay,” Brad says, pulling Ray up and into his arms. He takes the cup and gives it back to Walt. “I think it’s time for a nap.”

“But, Bradley,” Ray says, as Brad begins pushing him inside. “Nate’s just gotten here!”

“And you’ll see him later, Ray,” Nate hears Brad says before he shuts the sliding glass door.

Walt pats the seat beside him and Nate sits down, introducing himself to Trombley, who bounces a toddler in his lap and doesn’t offer a hand to Nate. Walt says, “So how long have you known Brad?” but it’s in this polite, innocent way, and Nate knows that Ray has told Walt everything that he was able to pry from Brad.

Trombley grins at Nate like he’s a fresh piece of meat.

Nate drinks.

***

Brad comes back eventually, his lips swollen and his shirt creased, and he pulls Nate into a corner of the house, his hand light on Nate’s arm. “Sorry,” he says, and it’s almost exactly the way he had said it before he left that last night.

“It’s okay,” Nate says automatically, and then wants to say something like no wait it really isn’t, but looks down at Brad’s shoes, instead.

“I know this is kind of hard for you,” Brad says, his hand still on Nate, and Nate feels his skin crawl.

“It’s not like we were engaged,” Nate says, just to be a dick, and watches Brad’s face shutter, watches him remember his ex-girlfriend and his best friend. “You are free to fuck whoever you want.”

Brad clears his throat and looks behind him, to a closed door that Nate guesses holds Ray, and then turns back to Nate. “Ray really likes you, Nate.”

“And you really like him?” Nate asks before he can stop himself.

“Yes,” Brad says, and then moves his hand from Nate’s arm to Nate’s face. “And I like you, too. And I really want this to be a lot easier than it is.”

Nate blinks once and then again. “What are you saying?”

And Brad leans down to kiss him.

 

 

**5.**

It was Ray who had thought of it first.

He tells that to Nate later, after Brad had driven them all to Ray’s apartment and pushed Ray, sleepily, into the bed and then Nate beside him, who had looked confused and then elated and then ashamed and then all three together before Ray had told him to stop thinking so loudly, bringing him close so he could press his lips to Nate’s.

It was Ray’s idea, but it was Brad who had told him not to do anything before he could think through every little detail, every consequence. He didn’t want to hurt Nate, Ray said when Brad had wandered off to make coffee in Ray’s stupid, half-broken coffee pot. He didn’t want to put Nate into a position where Nate would feel uncomfortable because that wasn’t the goal here, that wasn’t even remotely what they were aiming for.

Both of them had wanted this to work.

Brad comes back with three mugs balanced in his big hands and Ray stretches to show off all his dark tattoos and Nate takes his coffee in his hands carefully and tries not to spill on Ray’s sheets. Ray reaches for the bottle of Lorazepam on his nightstand and swallows two pills while Brad runs his fingers through Ray’s short hair, drinking his coffee before waiting for it to cool.

Ray says, “Fuck downers, man,” and shakes his head. “I only take them when I’m not touring because otherwise they fuck with my lifestyle.”

“You mean your lifestyle of living in a trailer, drinking moonshine, and fucking goats?” Brad says, and Nate’s surprised into a laugh.

Ray grins. “Don’t forget singing country songs,” and starts to belt out some George Strait before Brad sets down his coffee cup and places both of his hands over Ray’s mouth, Ray struggling and laughing and then finally licking Brad’s palms so Brad will relent.

“You better get used to this,” Ray says to Nate when Brad lets him up. “Bradley’s a monster.”

Nate doesn’t say anything for a moment and Ray rolls his eyes. “Are you still uncomfortable, holmes?” he asks. “You’ve seen both of our dicks.”

Nate smiles, and then flattens his mouth in curiosity. “Why?” He asks, and Ray knows that it’s really why him, why this, all three of them here in Ray’s shitty apartment, sharing a bed.

Brad looks at Ray and Ray shrugs and then makes a why not face. “Hey,” he says, “I wasn’t kidding when I told you that I wanted your number for the orgies.” He holds up one finger. “That reminds me, I should call Walt and tell him to get his skinny ass down here.”

Brad smiles and ignores him, saying in answer to Nate’s question, “We like you, Nate,” like that wasn’t obvious, and Ray rolls his eyes again, picking up his coffee.

The sun is just setting behind them, the shadows of the wide windows stretching out over the bed, and the sun feels warm, pleasant, and Ray stretches again before settling back against the pillows. He can feel his anxiety slowly melt away from his body, can feel his muscles relax, feel his heartbeat slow in his chest, and he sighs happily and lets Brad kiss him on the temple before he reaches over and grabs Nate’s hand, threading his fingers through Nate’s.

“This is all we wanted,” Ray says, and feels Brad nod against him.

Nate moves his head like he’s saying okay and Ray watches Brad turn to kiss Nate one more time.

Nate lets him.


End file.
